


Making a Mark

by Hokuto



Category: Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Aliens, Gen, Graffiti, Minor Original Character(s), Nonnies Made Me Do It, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 21:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18018386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: The security officer has a lot of down time - and no idea what to do with it.





	Making a Mark

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "100 words of rehumanisation," although it's more like "repersonalization" in this case since not everyone here is human...

So, it had turned out that while _Rozinante_ could fold dozens of light-years in the blink of an eye, the calculations required to keep five kilometers plus of fancy ship out of event horizons and random debris fields could take days, even for Durandal. And factoring in the random nature of the rogue star's path just piled the hours onto the trip. Nothing but peaceful, empty time spent hanging in the void between jumps.

The security officer spent most of it patrolling.

She would have called it "going on a lot of walks," but there was only so much she could fool herself. "Walks" in partial or full armor with at least one gun? Not really simple walks, no matter the total lack of threats. She just couldn't think of anything else to do, and that only made her patrol more, driven by restless frustration.

It wasn't like she'd never had hobbies or downtime. She knew she'd had them; for Christ's sake, she could _remember_ them, except the memories always shredded into nothing, into a routine of work-food-sleep-work like she had never done anything else. Maybe it was because she'd been on-duty since the morning of the invasion, no breaks - unless you counted stasis or Pfhor prison, and she sure as hell didn't - just the never-ending fight. And without it...

She was marching down a red-and-gray hall for a change of pace when she nearly knocked into a S'pht floating perfectly still, half in and half out of a niche with an inactive terminal. "Whoa, sorry," she said. "Didn't see you there."

The S'pht didn't move. Shoot. She tried one of the S'pht greetings she'd been learning, and that got their attention; they turned to face her, though they still didn't say anything. "Are you okay?" she asked, trying to remember how the S'pht said it. "Uh - everything functioning?"

"I am functioning just fine," the S'pht said, in way better English than she had heard from any of the others. "But I lack purpose."

"Oh. Really?"

"I speak truthfully," said the S'pht. Their chest gem had a dull tinge. "I have known only the labor of slavery and the fight for freedom. Now freedom is won, but there is more time than work to be done, and when I have no work -" Their orange robe fluttered. "- then I have nothing."

"Buddy," the security officer said, "I know that feeling." Poor bastard. She leaned against the bulkhead and glanced along the pristine hall. There had to be something the two of them could do; something that could throw a wrench into the cogs of boredom and make them feel less like - well, cogs in a bored, broken machine. Metaphors had never been her strong point. Something fun and not like work...

Her hand drifted along the guns she'd picked that morning and stopped on the square butt of the fusion pistol, and she grinned. "Hey. You ever get the urge to leave your mark somewhere?"

\---

"Okay, we got one battery left. Think we can finish it off?"

"Yes - but I must complete the letter. Your calculations are poor."

"Big words from someone who spent a battery and a half on a fancy 'E.'"

"That was -"

"I don't hate to interrupt," Durandal said from the terminal as it lit up, "but exactly what are you two doing to my hard-earned walls?"

"We are creating _art graffiti_ ," Hr'cnor declared proudly.

"Damn right." The security officer stepped back to glance over their handiwork. Okay, "art" was a little strong for her lopsided smiley face, but the effort they'd both put into "EAT IT PFHOR SLAVERS" had paid off. Or would once they burned the final "S" on the bulkhead.

"This may be the galaxy's first fusion pistol graffiti," Durandal said. "And I hope it's the last. Good thing I didn't give you vandals lasers." And then, after a moment's pause, "Mine was better. It was Latin, _and_ it was much bigger."

"Hey, you had a whole moon and a bunch of fancy guns to work with. Me and Hr'cnor are just having some fun with what we got."

"As impressive as it is, maybe you should try having fun without wasting valuable resources. Or you can go up against a pack of hunters with an empty fusion pistol for my entertainment. Your call."

"Do not be The Square Man," Hr'cnor said, and in Durandal's brief, mortally offended silence, they and the security officer took off down the hall, her laughter echoing behind them.


End file.
